Why President Obama Agreed to be Interviewed by YouTubers

White House wants to engage the younger generation

Three YouTubers were able to score the hardest interview in the U.S.—a no-holds-barred sit-down with President Barack Obama. Hank Green, GloZell Green and Bethany Mota interviewed the Commander in Chief, and their exchanges were streamed live on Thursday night.

This is the sixth year that the White House and Google have partnered. Both parties decided that it would be intriguing to get popular YouTubers to ask the questions, which topically ranged from drones to the cost of college to same-sex marriage. Google solicited questions with the hasthtag #YouTubeAsksObama, and also allowed the creators to come up with queries. None of the questions were apparently vetted by the White House beforehand.

Sources said White House handlers were particularly interested because they wanted to reach millennial Americans—who typically don't watch or read traditional media—to talk about policy issues. Together, the trio of YouTubers have a total of 21 million YouTube subscribers, and a social media following of more than 32.7 million users. The most popular of the bunch, Bethany Mota (who was recently profiled in Adweek), has 10.3 million YouTube subscribers, including a channel that averages 2 million views per day.